"You can't stop me, kid!" Bill snapped, using the last of his dwindling power to rush at Dipper and try to pull his soul from his body and into the Mindscape. He could not be defeated; the millions of years of work he had put into this could not be wasted. Dipper's body went limp and there was an invisible struggle as Mabel and the elder Pines twins watched in horror. He stumbled onto his hands and knees, gasping and clutching his chest as Bill's entire being assaulted him with a pain that roared through his veins and into his heart like wildfire.
"Dipper!" Mabel cried, and before Stanford could reach out and stop her, she was kneeling over her twin brother, who writhed in agony as the blood-red sky began to fade back to normal, the great wound that Bill had torn into the heavens beginning to close. His liquid brown eyes opened and blinked slowly. "B-bro?" Mabel asked hesitantly, cringing as Dipper sat up, pushing her away.
"I see... Shooting stars..." he murmured, barely audible, stumbling drunkenly to his feet only to trip over his own awkward legs, landing face first in the mud.
"What did you just say?"
There was no chance for him to answer. His body remained limp and unmoving. Mabel's ears filled with car alarms, her lungs with fire and her stomach dropped to her feet as she rolled Dipper's unmoving form over, wiping dirt from his face and trying in vain to find the slightest pulsation of a heartbeat within his breast. There was nothing. Mabel clasped his cooling hand in her own, sobbing uncontrollably as her uncles stared in silent shock. Bill had been destroyed, but at a terrible price.
Dipper was rushed to the hospital but by the time he arrived it was too late. He was declared dead on arrival. A small funeral was held, intimate and unextravagant, in Gravity Falls, attended by Stanford and Stanley, Mabel, Mr. and Mrs. Pines, Wendy, Tambry, Robbie, Thompson and their friends, Lazy Susan, Soos and his family including his girlfriend, Melody, and a few other citizens of the small town who he'd helped over the summer. Their parents had asked why Mabel was so insistent on the small ceremony being held in Oregon instead of back home in California, but she wouldn't respond. She didn't know what to say.
Three weeks later, the silence in the stagnant attic air was just as suffocating as it had been the first day. Mabel had hardly moved from her position curled up on the bed, facing the wall. She'd refused to go home, and surprisingly, her parents allowed her to stay this long even after the summer ended. They understood her pain; Dipper had been her best friend and his loss was a crippling one. Everything else needed to stop, at least for a little while. She couldn't bear to turn around and see all of Dipper's things, left untouched as a fine layer of dust began to settle on his bed and books and the blue and white cap he had always worn that rested on the bed.
"Hey, pumpkin?" Grunkle Stan's grating voice murmured as the door creaked open. His voice was quieter than usual, and the expression on his rough, lined face was unusually understanding. "There're some pancakes downstairs. I can bring you some and like, some gummy worms to go with 'em or somethin'."
Of course their Grunkle would try and crack a joke. He always did, and despite herself, Mabel felt a little better. Just a little, but not enough.
"What's the point?" She sighed. There was no reason for her to do anything without her twin there beside her, to have her back. "Why should I enjoy a great breakfast if Dipper can't?"
Stan's expression softened. He walked in, sitting on the foot of the bed next to Mabel. "Well, sweetheart," he said, "maybe you should try enjoyin' it because Dipper can't, y'know what I'm sayin'?"
Mabel looked up at him with large, wet eyes, red and puffy from crying. "What do you mean?"
"Come sit with your Grunkle," he said, patting his lap as Mabel rolled over, putting her head on his knee. "See, kiddo, I felt the same way when your Great Uncle Ford fell through his portal. I thought of all the times we'd fought and not got along, y'know. I thought of those and hated myself for not getting a chance to apologize. It's hard, I know, but d'ya know what else I know?"
She shook her head, wiping tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, the same one she'd been wearing for at least two weeks. "What do you know?" She asked meekly, wiping a few strands of her greasy hair from her face.
"I know that your brother wouldn't wanna see you be sad, kid. Yeah, you guys fought and the both of you could be annoyin' as heck sometimes, but you're good kids. Dipper was a good kid. I think we both know that he'd wantcha to be happy, sweetie. Think about how upset he'd be if he knew you were up here mopin' because of him."
Mabel steeled herself and glanced over at her brother's things. His unmade bed and the books and pens strewn about looked almost as if he would've leapt upstairs at any second to retrieve his cap and drag Mabel along with him to exorcise some demon piranhas or something equally ridiculous. Stan was right, she thought. Dipper would be sad to see her being sad, and she didn't want that for him.
"You're right, Grunkle Stan," she murmured, a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips. "It won't be easy, but by gosh I'm gonna be happy. For Dipper!"
Stan smiled, too, but then it turned into a slight scowl. "Mabel, sweetie."
"Yes Grunkle Stan?"
"Please shower, kid. Yeesh, you smell! And this is comin' from me!"
The both laughed weakly as Mabel hopped off the bed. "Ok," she said, "I'll clean myself up if you'll save me some pancakes!"
"Deal, kiddo." Stan retreated back downstairs and Mabel gathered some clean clothes to replace her current ones. She decided on a bright purple sweater that had the word "positivity" stitched across the front in bold yellow letters. She figured Dipper would be proud, or amused at the very least.
She stood in the shower for a long time. It was refreshing to feel clean again, but that's not why she stood there. Mabel thought for what felt like a long while as the hot water cascaded down over her head, and the longer she thought the more she realized that this would be what Dipper wanted. She dried and dressed herself, brushing her hair and trying to look presentable for the first time in weeks.
She glanced over at Dipper's bed, and the lonely cap that sat by the pillow. After a moment's thought, she took it in her hands. She ran her fingers along the brim, admiring its fraying stitches. Worn, but still resolute. After another moment, Mabel tentatively placed the hat in her head. Yes, she thought. This would remind her of Dipper whenever she was tempted to feel sad and let him down. He had worn this cap almost nonstop since the first day of summer, and despite the abuse it had seen it remained by his side, unwavering so that is was nearly a part of Dipper himself. She would keep this part of her brother, Mabel resolved, she would keep it with her so that he could be with her as she healed. That would make it easier, she thought.
"Did you save some for me?" Mabel asked as she came downstairs.
"Yeah, kid, come'n get some p-" Stan froze a moment, enough for Ford to pull his nose away from his notebook to look up at Mabel.
"You're wearing Dipper's cap," Ford observed.
"Grunkle Stan told me how Dipper wouldn't want me to be sad," said Mabel with a melancholy smile. "And, I thought that maybe if I kept this with me, it'd remind me of him and maybe help me to not feel sad anymore."
Stan nodded approvingly. "You're doin' great, kid."
"It's a hard thing to go through," Ford chimed in awkwardly. Ford's people skills seemed to have degraded during all the years he spent trapped in another dimension, and it showed. But he meant well, and that's all that mattered.
Mabel thanked them both and sat with them at the kitchen table. They ate and laughed and joked. Things were almost normal save the fourth empty chair that glared at them throughout. Maybe reminders like that would be less common if she got away from the Mystery Shack, Mabel thought.
"What day is today?" She asked sheepishly, shoveling a bite of syrup-drenched pancakes into her mouth and cringing inwardly as she remembered the syrup races she and Dipper had always had. She definitely needed to step away from the shack.
"Saturday," Ford replied absentmindedly, wetting his fingers and turning the page.
"That's good." Mabel said, hopping from the table, "I think I'm gonna go see if Candy and Grenda are around. It's been a long time since we talked and they're probably worried about me."
Stan grinned, "Good idea, kiddo. It'll do ya some good to get some sun and, y'know, human contact or somethin'."
"Excellent," Ford said, still absorbed in his reading.
Mabel ran downstairs and through the empty shop, which was closed this weekend. Most likely, she knew, because Stan was too worried about her to keep running his tourist trap. If that didn't say something about how worried she'd made everyone, she didn't know what did. She closed the door behind her and started walking into town to find her friends at some of their usual hangout spots.
Once Stan had heard the bell on the door ring as Mabel left, he turned to Ford. "What d'ya think you're doing?"
Ford looked up, brown furrowed in worry. "Something isn't right, Stan."
"Of course it isn't! Mabel's really strugglin' right now and trust me, she's gonna need all the help she can get to be able to get through this and you're just ignorin' her!"
"No," Ford said, worry glistening in his eyes, "I really think something is terribly wrong. I don't think Bill was completely destroyed."
Stan's eyes widened, but then narrowed suspiciously. "What makes you think that?"
"My machines downstairs," he explained, "they're picking up powerful anomalies. They've only ever had readings like that when Bill was nearby."
"Maybe they're broken," Stan said, brushing him off.
"But that's not the only thing!" Ford continued, seeming to become a little more distraught the more he spoke, "At least twice, my journals weren't open to the pages where I left them!"
"Probably the wind, Ford." Stan sighed, "You're bein' so paranoid, no wonder you and the kid got along so good."
Ford narrowed his eyes. "I wouldn't be talking about this if it wasn't important. Please, trust me, and hear me out." Stan sighed and crossed his arms, but let his brother continue. "Things have been moved. Small things. My pens were arranged by amount of ink left in them. A great deal of my notes were alphabetized. I've even noticed other things in the house, like your garbage in the living room or dishes in the kitchen be mysteriously cleaned up. Small things keep moving and changing and these happenings just so happen to coincide with the anomalous readings I've been picking up!"
Stan's eyebrows furrowed and he scowled, seeming deep in thought. "So," he said, "we have a clean-freak ghost?"
Ford shook his head. Stan was surprised to see a twinge of fear in his eyes and voice. "No. Most ghosts cannot interact with the physical world without a vessel to possess, and even higher level poltergeists with that ability wouldn't give off a fraction of the readings I'm getting. I've been researching this ever since we lost Dipper and the events began. The only plausible answer I can find is that we are being haunted by a demon. One close to, if not just as powerful as Bill was."
"You seem pretty sure about this," Stan said. "So what d'ya think we should do?"
"I think the best course of action," Ford replied, "would be to perform a summoning ritual."
"You wanna summon a demon in the Shack?" Stan crossed his arms, shaking his head.
"Is it really that big a deal? If all he's doing is messin' with your pens, d'ya really think it's worth that much trouble?"
"Yes." Replied Ford determinedly. "I propose we tell Mabel this evening. If she wants to stay, she can, and watch the ritual. Otherwise, she can go somewhere else until we are done and find out what this entity wants, and how to get rid of it. I don't trust it one bit. Like I said, the power I'm reading is much too great for this demon to be doing things as mundane as cleaning up after you and I like some kind of housemaid- it's strong enough that it might even be..." He swallowed hard, "that Bill somehow survived and regained his strength. He must be planning something."
"Alright. We'll break it to the kid when she gets home, but for now, tell me what we'll need for this ritual." There was a long pause. "I have some questions, first though."
"Go on."
"Is it gonna be safe for the kid? And more importantly, will it scratch my floors?"
A/N: Hi there Internet! I haven't done detailed writing like this in a while, so please excuse any errors! I hope nobody's too OOC, but if so please let me know so I can avoid similar mistakes in future chapters.